What Price Old Glory?

A cynical law-school adage says that if Americans ever held a referendum on the First Amendment, they would overwhelmingly reject it. They may soon get the opportunity. Many people were outraged when the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution’s free-speech protection extends even to occasional political protesters who torch and trample the symbol of liberty, the American flag. Among the outraged was George Bush, who proposes to do something about it.

Declaring that he was “viscerally” against the court’s decision, the President called for a constitutional amendment to carve an unprecedented exception in the Bill of Rights and allow states to make flag burning a crime. Bush delivered his announcement while standing with Republican congressional leaders in front of the Iwo Jima memorial at a hurriedly arranged photo opportunity near Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. “The flag is too sacred to be abused,” he said. “If it is not defended, it is defamed.”

Bush had initially been silent about an amendment, unsure that a President should meddle in constitutional law. Over the weekend, however, he took the national pulse via talk shows, and on Monday aides said he favored “legislation” to remedy the court’s action. After his advisers told him that the Justices would surely strike down a new law, Bush said he wanted to codify his feelings in a constitutional amendment.

Never to be outdone, lawmakers on Capitol Hill joined the hysterical chorus. In an extraordinary all-night session, House members of both parties waited their turn to fulminate about the flag decision. Though Democratic leaders ! want to bottle up the measure in committee, Bush’s language would become the Constitution’s 27th Amendment if two-thirds of both houses of Congress adopt the measure and 37 states vote to ratify it.

Since flag burnings occur only rarely, the amendment would amount to using a sledgehammer to kill a flea. Moreover, legal scholars warn, one exception to free speech could lead to another.

But politics is always more fun than government. And Bush, after all, won the White House last year by visiting flag factories and reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Whatever the lawyers’ cautions, any good politician knows another axiom: Dance with the one what brung you.